Ubiquitous shallow trap states and lattice hydrogenation of ZnO particles

ZnO nanoparticle powders are an important and common starting material for functional devices that require the highest purity for electronic and optical applications. In this combined ab initio and experimental study, we use electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy to detect shallow donor states in the ZnO lattice via their characteristic EPR resonance at g = 1.96. Using DFT calculations that account for the chemical environment and the high temperatures during the gas-phase synthesis in conjunction with control experiments with atomic hydrogen, we show that these paramagnetic defects correspond to neutral hydrogenated oxygen sites (OH_O⁰). As a key implication of these findings, ZnO particle powders, although produced under pure gas-phase synthesis conditions and subsequently annealed in vacuum to 873 K, were found to be doped with hydrogen at a base concentration of 10^-5 at% and higher. This, in turn, highlights the often-overlooked role of unwanted hydrogen in nanoscale ZnO as components for applications in optics, electronics, and sensing.